Valery Giscard d'Estaing

Valery Giscard d'Estaing (2 February 1926-) was President of France from 27 May 1974 to 21 May 1981, succeeding Georges Pompidou and preceding Francois Mitterrand. Giscard d'Estaing was a prominent liberal politician, holding liberal views on divorce, contraception, and abortion, and he also supported infrastructure projects. However, his popularity was hurt by the economic downturn following the 1973 energy crisis, and both the left-wing Socialist Party of France and the right-wing Gaullist movement opposed his presidency. In 1981, he was defeated for re-election by Socialist candidate Mitterrand.

Biography
Valery Giscard d'Estaing was born in Koblenz, French-occupied Germany in 1926, the son of a high-ranking civil servant and a mother who was from a prominent political and noble family. He served in the French Resistance and French Army during World War II, taking part in the 1944 Liberation of Paris. In 1956, he became a parliamentary deputy, and he became the leader of a group of Independent Republicans, occupying a central political role from 1962 to 1968, when the Gaullists needed his support to form a government. He was Minister of Finance from 1961 to 1966 and from 1969 to 1974, when he was elected President, in part because the Gaullists failed to agree upon a strong candidate. Giscard d'Estaing at first impressed with a populist style, combining liberal policies such as the lowering of the voting age to 18 and legalizing abortion within the first teen weeks of pregnancy with efforts at improving social equality, such as the introduction of comprehensive secondary schools. His popularity decreased owing to difficulties at coping with the 1973 oil-price shock. Although strengthened to some extent by the foundation in 1978 of the Union for French Democracy, he was increasingly weakened by his rocky relationship with the Gaullists led by Jacques Chirac. This relationship deteriorated even further in 1976, when he dismissed Chirac from the office of Prime Minister and appointed the UDF's Raymond Barre instead. He lost his bid for another term in office as a result of public impatience with his increasingly patrician and distant style, a renewed economic crisis, and a rejuvenated left led by Francois Mitterrand. He continued to exert considerable influence as an elder statesman and president of the UDF until 1996.